Contemplations of a Potions Master
by Battlefield Angel
Summary: Snape's thoughts about Gwen, Kate and his relations with the decidedly exasperating Rhys clan


I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters, just borrowing them for a bit. Anyways, Kate, Gwen, Anwen, Orion and Lorenzo are mine… What, I didn't put anything about Orion in this one? Please don't tell him that; he would be horribly offended. Which is just as well, as he would be equally offended by what Snape thinks of him….  
  
K.S.  
  
  
  
They were fraternal twins, I decided. Anwen had brown hair and tawny gold eyes, but Gwen, she deserved the nickname that was given to her by those infatuated swains. Golden Gwen of Gryffindor. She was nothing less than a ray of sunlight in those dungeons. Which was why I decided to try and better the serum. It took forever, but I did it.  
  
And Gwen appreciated it! I couldn't help but love her; no one could. She was so frank and open and charming, without even meaning to be. I just sort of fell into the habit, like so many others did. But there was a difference; I had something to offer her. The serum was my gateway to being a part of her life. And I would have, too, if that damned Sirius Black hadn't made a mess of everything.  
  
The Potters had a hand in it. Gwen was the bridesmaid at their wedding, I had seen her after, she wore emerald green robes, her golden hair twisted into a soft bun. She was, as always too lovely for words. She had danced with Sirius Black, I knew that much. They danced together too much. Jealousy, you say? It worked both ways. There are only a few people who know about that night he tried to kill me.  
  
Black told me just enough to make me curious. Good at that, he was. Telling a person just enough to make them believe him, make them want to know… Gwen was furious. She was innocent in that particular trick. She was in as much danger as any of us. Anwen, being the sensible twin, took her serum, while Gwen… My mad, impetuous Gwen ignored it, saying she liked to dance in the moonlight. Too bad it had to be the full moon. She danced out there, in her white nightgown, like a wild creature. She didn't even look human, unearthly, she was that night. After the ordeal with Lupin, Black went out after her and caught her in his arms. She looked human enough when he kissed her, and when she slapped him. When she did that, I fought a terrible urge to cheer.  
  
That was when she decided that she did not like Sirius Black, and that she would wander about Hogsmeade with me for the next couple weeks. But she went back to him. He was too handsome, maddeningly so. Blue eyes and black hair only accentuated by that damn devil may care attitude. Sometimes, I can see it shining through the girl, then she changes and I can almost see my insane perfectionism in those forbidding little brows.  
  
Oh yes, the girl. I want her to be mine, you know. I want to know that this was one thing I did that Black didn't. I want to know that this odd little bundle of contradictions is my child… Mine and Gwen's.  
  
I only made love to her once. In her little flat in London, I had just come back from one of my spying missions. I knew that the Dark Lord was after the Potters, and failing that, he wanted Gwen. He wanted Gwen not only for her bloodline, one of the most powerful and one of the most pure; but for the powers she possessed. At that time, the only people in the whole world who were known to be capable of calling the Wild Hunt were the Rhys twins.  
  
I had to see her. She was the only light in my life. HE had performed the Cruciatus curse on several of us, for some imagined failure… by that time, he merely liked to hear and watch people in pain. I couldn't imagine Gwen anywhere near him. She was his very antithesis. I showed up at her doorstep, battered, bleeding, and she took me in. And I told her everything. She said not one word to me as she tended the bruises and cuts, merely sat at my feet and listened once she had finished. Then she made me eat. Still, talkative, lively Gwen had not said anything. She laid her head against the armchair, her hair almost red in the firelight. I did not know what I was doing when I leaned down and kissed her. And she kissed me back!  
  
Once that strange, and somehow perfect night was over, I hurried her to Hogwarts. It was the only safe place I could think of. She was pale and lovely when she kissed me good-bye. I certainly thought that it would be forever at the time. The next time I saw her, she was once again pale and tragic. It was nine, almost ten years later. She was burying her twin sister.  
  
Anwen had called the Hunt. Apparently someone was after the child. But the prey had rounded, and attacked Anwen. The child had sneaked out and almost gotten herself killed. Fate had intended one Rhys die that day. And Anwen was the chosen sacrifice.  
  
I saw the child at the funeral. Katherine. Her hair was not quite black, but the color of dark chocolate, with red and gold hints hiding until you saw it in the sunlight. In any other light, or in the dark for that matter, her hair reflected silver, as silver as the crescent moon which hangs in the sky tonight. Her eyes were a stormy blue, the characteristic Rhys gold weakened to rings about each pupil. She was even more pale and tragic than Gwen. The first time I heard her speak she said, "It's all my fault." And then she ran. She ran to a place where she felt safe; oddly enough, she ran to the battlefield. This strange child had grown up on the doorstep of one of the bloodiest Muggle battles in history, and she loved a certain maze of boulders and rocks. Devil's Den. Odd that the Child Silverhair should be most comfortable in a place supposedly belonging to the Devil.  
  
I found her after she ran. Katherine was singing, like a little lark. She sang two songs, The Ash Grove and Kathleen Mavourneen. She still sings those songs, still sounds like a lark. I picked her up and carried her home. I thought, most irreverently at the time and place, that she could have been Gwen's… and mine. The dark hair, the obstinate self- remorse. Again, those forbidding little black brows, which could arch like a Gothic cathedral window. I loved the child even then.  
  
She didn't come to Hogwarts two years later, as I would have thought. Gwen could not do without her, most people imagined. But I should have known better than that. Why keep a child at Hogwarts, where she could become lost in the shuffle and bustle, when said child could be at Cannon Hill, the most protected and powerful private home in the world. The wards about the house alone would kill anyone bearing the Dark Mark on contact. Even though I had no occasion to be in the States, I knew that Gwen had exempted me from the wards. Only when the girl came to Hogwarts when she was fifteen, did I learn why she had been kept away for so long. Lorenzo, an old and powerful dark wizard (it was said that he had discovered the key to immortality) had wanted the child for his own purposes, to control the Come- Hither and the Wild Hunt through Katherine. He also wanted the girl for his consort. After Katherine defeated him, Gwen sent her to Hogwarts. She reasoned that the child would be safer here. And so she sits, diligently taking down her Potions notes in my class.  
  
Potter sits beside her, they whisper back and forth every once in a while. There, Katherine's eyes are virtually starry! Sinistra could probably find several constellations in those blue eyes. I WANT TO KNOW!!!! I want to call this impulsive, irrepressible, mad child my daughter! She's been watching me. I wonder what she is thinking. No glass face, there. It is as unreadable as a stonewall, though hers is the handsomer of the two.  
  
She's not really pretty, this little girl with strange eyes and stranger gifts. Oh, no. Which is surprising as all the Rhys women have been blindingly beautiful since time forgot. Though Morgana and Kate are nearly identical. Morgana. I'd wager that wily old creature knows. But she either will not tell or cannot tell.  
  
Such a fey child! The girl stands out like a star in the dreary dungeon. She mixed the potion with care. I'm not worried that she might make a mistake. Oh no, that would be at odds with her semi-divinity.  
  
When Katherine gets into trouble, it is because of her mouth. The things that child says. She alone of all my students can make me blush.  
  
"Fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake! Eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog. Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, lizard's leg and howlet's wing. For a charm of powerful trouble, like a hell-broth boil and bubble. Double, double, toil and trouble! Fire burn and cauldron bubble!" Kate Rhys recited, with a cheeky grin at me. Gwen must have told her that I have a weak spot for Shakespeare. I made my way to the table where Kate and Potter sat.  
  
She looked straight at me and said softly, "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. Professor?" She dared me to answer her.  
  
"Most amusing, Miss Rhys. Has your extinguishing potion reached boiling point?"  
  
"It has," she said shortly, looking at him with an arched eyebrow. He caught the flash of the golden rings almost overshadowing the blue in her eyes. She was angry about something. I couldn't help but wander what it was.  
  
"Light a fire, we shall try your potion." I said. Katherine and Potter nodded. Kate looked up into the air, and then focused her eyes on the place I had indicated. The fire started immediately. Kate looked into the fire, willing it to grow.  
  
"Now!" She said to the boy, who followed her words. The fire went out, simple as that. It wasn't Potter's doing, that much is certain.  
  
"Very well done, Miss Rhys. Though the next time, please don't show off. Use your wand to light the fire. We don't want anyone getting hurt trying to emulate you."  
  
"Or immolate me." She replied, quick as the lash of a whip. I couldn't help it, I laughed. The rest of the students looked at me in surprise, and at her in rank fear. When one makes surly old Snape laugh, you must know the girl isn't human. And so she isn't. Half of her anyway. There was part of her that was quite human. And that part I hoped was due to me. 


End file.
